August 1  has come and gone, and SpicePay made it through the drama that divided the bitcoin community. Following a brief security hold, we’re back in the bitcoin business, with all services in good operating order. Your patience during this odd little interval is appreciated.

So what exactly happened?

As you’ll recall from recent SpicePay blog posts and emails, the bitcoin community was split over how to solve the bitcoin scalability problem. To recap briefly, when Bitcoin was created nearly a decade ago, each “block” was limited to 1Mb. This worked fine for a while…until it didn’t. Bitcoin grew so popular that the millions of transactions being conducted were causing a traffic jam on the bitcoin blockchain.

Transaction speeds slowed down as a result, and everyone agreed a solution was needed.

However, in order to be implemented, that solution would need a broad consensus among bitcoin miners and developers. Various proposals were advanced. Supporters rallied. Opponents roared. Ultimately it came down to two contenders with two different technological approaches: SegWit2x and Bitcoin Cash. SegWit2x would take transaction data out of the block, and Bitcoin Cash would increase the block size.

An August 1 deadline was set, but no consensus was reached. Thus Bitcoin Cash has launched and Bitcoin adopted SegWit2x. Now there are essentially two versions of Bitcoin in circulation: Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The takeaway

As we’ve stated previously, SpicePay does not plan to support Bitcoin Cash. The original Bitcoin is well established, widely used, and highly valued. We have complete faith in it, and we’re excited about its ongoing evolution. Especially now. With faster transaction speeds, Bitcoin will continue to grow and gain wider acceptance among businesses – bringing us another leap forward into a world of decentralized, peer-to-peer currency. Bitcoin business is alive and kicking, which is great news for bitcoin merchants and users everywhere.